In order to understand why certain words could not be printed, or rather why those words could not be engraved, one had to first understand what incantations were.
Incantations were the language used to communicate in ancient times. And this language contained authority, the ability to command all things in the world. In other words, in this era, those incantations that were difficult to pronounce could actually be translated into words that everyone could understand and had a clear meaning.
For any magic passed down from ancient times, after the incantations were translated into modern languages, one would know that it was nothing more than a description of the name of the person, ordering something, and doing something. Apart from that, it was just a bunch of flowery words of praise. And of course, the incantations of the magic that was improved on such a foundation would not be able to escape from such a structure.
If it was an incantation of a general statement or praise, it would not be a big problem if it was engraved in reverse and then transferred. But what about the name of the person?
With the power of words and language, reading a name in reverse, writing it in reverse, or even writing it in reverse alphabetical order would be considered a blasphemy. If someone really did that, the explosion after the magic went out of control would be the least of it. If that person was still alive, it would not be impossible for them to directly descend to the mortal world and beat the person up.
And in order to make a relief plate for printing, of course, the target words or images to be printed would have to be engraved on the plate in reverse. It was this process that angered the original owner of the name. Regardless of whether that person was still alive or not, that mysterious power would prevent such a situation from happening.
Apart from that, there were also some special characters. Although they did not represent the name of a certain existence, they could not be engraved in reverse. For example, in incantations, words that represented 'life', 'creation', and so on would have the opposite meaning if they were turned upside down.
It must be known that incantations and runes would have their own influence even if they existed on their own. It was just that some were strong and some were weak. The research team led by the head of Kabambai Academy risked their lives to find these characters that, when engraved in reverse, would cause a violent reaction if they existed on their own.
And in the process of this research, there was actually a small interlude. Originally, Kabambai's research team could only classify the printed characters and patterns into three categories. First, normal. Second, they would disappear in an extremely short period of time after being printed. Third, they couldn't even be engraved. If they were engraved upside down, they would immediately explode.
Originally, after finding these three types, as long as the latter two were avoided, the Manroland Printing Machine would be able to print out an endless stream of semi-finished magic scrolls. After that, a Magician or a Magician's Apprentice would fill in the gaps, and a complete magic scroll would be freshly made.
Just as Kabanbai's men rolled up their sleeves and were about to show off their skills, a certain someone stepped forward and stopped them.
If it had been someone else, the dean who was proud of his achievements might not have listened to any 'advice' that was disguised as kindness. Who knew if the person who said those words was truly jealous or envious?
But when Gabriel Tripwood spoke, the weight was completely different. No matter what, he had to listen.
"Dean, have you ever thought about how long the parts that can be sealed can be maintained? Even if you want to complete a semi-finished magic scroll, you still need a Magician or an Apprentice to put in the effort, time, and power. Filling in the gaps is no different from casting a spell. Even if a person can complete more than before in a day, there is always an upper limit. And what is this upper limit? If you don't plan to print in large quantities, it will only be a waste of materials in the end. "
It was precisely because of these words that Kabambai started another phase of research. He also left a record of how long each individual printed rune or magic array line could last.
With Lin's help, the research team led by the dean had already started to use numbers to make some records and simple calculations. After the magically modified Manroland Printing Machine, how many semi-finished magic scrolls could be printed in a day? How many semi-finished magic scrolls could an Apprentice or a Magician complete in a day? After adding up the numbers on both sides, they realized that the previous plan could be said to be a huge mistake.
If they didn't listen to someone's advice and started to make magic scrolls in large quantities after some results, there wouldn't be enough manpower left. In the end, they wouldn't be able to complete the magic scrolls before their power was exhausted, and most of the materials would be wasted.
Although there were many materials that were wasted in the process of research to observe the results of experiments, at least they contributed something. If it was because they didn't plan well that the materials had to be scrapped, then it would be a pure waste and loss. Even if the academy had more funds than before due to the share of the mathematics journals, such a loss was still unbearable.
With a good suggestion as a start, Lin continued to give a lot of suggestions.
If the first suggestion wasn't accepted, then it might be seen as interfering with other people's research. After all, Marco Lin took the initiative to keep a distance from the team that printed the magic scrolls. But with the first successful communication, the members of the team did indeed benefit from it, so the following suggestions weren't that difficult to accept.
Lin's second suggestion was to use the half-finished printing method as a prerequisite to re-examine the difficulty of making magic scrolls.
Basically, the difficulty of creating a magic scroll was on par with the difficulty of casting it, or even a little more difficult. This was because casting spells required the ability to construct spell models and recite spells. It was only possible to cast spells without reciting spells after understanding them thoroughly enough.
But when a part of the magic scrolls could be printed by machines, the difficulty of making them should be judged by how many parts had to be completed by humans, and this part couldn't be done by machines.
The third suggestion was originally to let Kabambai use his connections and human resources to research what kind of magic scrolls would be more popular in the market. Simply put, a sample survey should be done first. The target group was the active adventurers, and they wanted to see what kind of magic scrolls they would like to have as an aid in their adventures.
But considering the market mechanism, in an era of low productivity, the supply determined the demand; in an era of high productivity, the demand determined the supply.
Although the team led by Kabambai could produce magic scrolls quickly with the support of the Manroland printing machine, it was only one machine, and couldn't be considered to have stepped into a new era. If they wanted to meet the demand of the market, their current productivity was far from enough. So, Lin gave up on using the results of the survey to make magic scrolls that were in high demand.
Basically, this was still an era where they could sell as much as they could make.
Of course, with Kabambai, Bijan, and the other great mages in charge, they definitely wouldn't make magic scrolls that were useless for adventures, battles, and life-saving.
But even without someone's reminder, they had the experience of almost making a large number of magic scrolls, but the manpower couldn't keep up, and a large number of materials were almost wasted. After Kabambai obtained more results, he didn't just sit around and blindly make magic scrolls.
Instead, he found the president of the Chamber of Commerce, who had been working with him for a long time, and asked him what kind of magic scrolls were more popular, or to put it bluntly, what kind of magic scrolls would sell better. To put it simply, he had considered the problem of sales before making the magic scrolls.
But just as Lin guessed, the demand for magic scrolls in the current bewildering land was still in a state where the demand far exceeded the supply. Even if there were many mages in the Holy City and few adventurers, the magic scrolls wouldn't sell much. But looking at the entire Guevana Empire, magic scrolls were a proper strategic resource for the nobles and the army. Basically, they would buy as many as they could.
Since he didn't have to worry about sales, Kabambai naturally didn't hold back. For the first official production, he didn't choose to make many magic scrolls at the same time. Instead, he made only one. His target was the upgraded version of the first circle apprentice spell, Summon Advanced Magic Puppet.
This spell was on the more difficult side when it came to making magic scrolls. Of course, it couldn't be compared to strategic spells, but it wasn't something that apprentices or mages who had just become mages could make. Even a Magic Puppet Summoning Scroll wasn't easy to make.
After all, one had to communicate with the elemental planes, negotiate with any consciousness there, and pay a price to make it willing to come to the material plane to work for them. Therefore, the complexity of the magic array was on the high side. Many mages didn't have a high success rate when making magic scrolls for Summon Advanced Magic Puppet because the magic array wasn't drawn well enough, resulting in failure.
However, regardless of whether it was Summon Advanced Magic Puppet or Summon Advanced Magic Puppet, it was a very popular spell for adventurers. In addition to having an extra fighting force in battle, magic puppets could be used as shields, tools to explore the path, and even triggers to destroy traps.
For the consciousness residing in magic puppets, their destruction in the material plane was just a matter of returning to the elemental plane to be reborn. Therefore, they didn't care about damage or even the end of their host body in the bewildering land.
However, with the Manroland printing machine, the difficulty of making Summon Advanced Magic Puppet scrolls dropped to the bottom of the valley. This was because there were less than five parts of the complex magic scroll that needed to be made by hand, and there were still three days before the half-finished product would be scrapped.
More importantly, because most of the magic array lines were done by the printing machine, the success rate of Summon Advanced Magic Puppet scrolls skyrocketed.
The higher the success rate, the lower the production cost. Originally, apprentices and even new mages couldn't necessarily make magic scrolls well, but now, hundreds of them could be mass-produced in a day. With such an astonishing success rate and production speed, it was no surprise that it caused a sensation!
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